Lapland fiasco ruins magic of Christmas

A FAMILY claim their once-in-a-lifetime day trip to the home of Father Christmas was ruined by airport delays of more than five hours. Dean and Anna Farrar, of Norden, spent more than £1,500 to give five-year-old Louise and Lisa, aged 11, a trip they would never forget, a one-day whistlestop tour of Lapland to meet Santa Claus.

TREAT ended in tears ... Dean and Anna Farrar were devastated by the catalogue of problems when they took daughters Lisa and Louise to Lapland.

Share

Get daily updates directly to your inbox

Thank you for subscribing!

Could not subscribe, try again laterInvalid Email

A FAMILY claim their once-in-a-lifetime day trip to the home of Father Christmas was ruined by airport delays of more than five hours.

Dean and Anna Farrar, of Norden, spent more than £1,500 to give five-year-old Louise and Lisa, aged 11, a trip they would never forget, a one-day whistlestop tour of Lapland to meet Santa Claus.

But the trip turned out to be memorable for all the wrong reasons, thanks to technical problems on the plane.

The aircraft was scheduled to take off at 8.30am on Saturday, but stayed on the runway at Manchester Airport, full of passengers, for more than three hours while engineers fought to rectify an hydraulic failure. A replacement plane was brought in at 12.30pm to shuttle frustrated children and their parents to their destination.

Mr Farrar says he wasn’t offered a hot drink during the delay and had to huddle with his family to stay warm as the plane door was open for the entire time it was on the ground.

The return was just as bad, when they were stranded on the ground for more than two hours after antifreeze, which had been sprayed onto the plane, found its way into the electrics.

Mr Farrar criticised the lack of communication between cabin crew and passengers and says the trip lacked Christmas spirit.

He said: "There was one stewardess wearing reindeer antlers, but that was it, there were no decorations up or anything. We were expecting to be back at Manchester Airport by 10.30pm, but it was 4am on Sunday by the time we eventually got home, by which time we’d all been awake for 24 hours. The kids were just wasted and my wife was in tears for the entire journey.

"At the price we paid, this was meant to be a once-in-a-lifetime trip. Once we were there we were looked after reasonably well, but the flights just ruined it."

A Jet2.com spokeswoman said the company could not comment on individual customer complaints until they had been investigated by the customer service team.